Thanks Crawford Long-Emory!

Remember Marty’s stitches?

Price for walking in the Emergency room door on a Sunday night: $292 (billed by Crawford Long)

Price for a nurse looking at his hand and saying, “It needs stitches.”: $226 (billed by Emory)

Price for a nurse’s bad stitching job: $444 (billed by Emory)

Total time spent in the Emergency Room waiting to be seen? From 9:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Total time seen? 20 minutes (the nurse took a while stitching Marty’s hand as she kept pulling the stitches through the skin and having to start over). That’s roughly $48 a minute. And roughly $90 a stitch. Or, really, that’s $40 a stitch if the cost of the stitching alone was $444.

Crawford Long also tried to charge us an extra $90 for having the stitches removed, when we’d been told to return there for their removal as that cost was included. Took two phone calls to straighten that out.

Posted

June 18, 2007

Everyday Stories

Juli Kearns

Tags:

Comments

2 responses to “Thanks Crawford Long-Emory!”

Kate S.

June 21, 2007

Their day is coming. The time will arrive when these bills will demand accountability. I can’t believe the pages-long bill I received from a tiny, meaningless surgery to remove my gall bladder. The charges just went on and on and on … for every little tiny thing they could think of, to charge me for. I’m surprised they didn’t list a charge for the oxygen I breathed while occupying their recovery room, or for the water I used whenever I flushed the toilet.

I refused to take any of their meds to maintain my regemine, dispensed from their pharmacy, bringing in my own. You can’t believe the fights I went through with these people, hearing every excuse they could think of, why I could not take my own drugs but had to take theirs. I finally evoked my Patient’s Rights, set down by the Supreme Court, even speaking the same, legal words in an even tone, that I had the right to refuse any medication offered to me. Then they left me alone but they were very mean to me.

My daughter wanted to get them all fired when she heard about it, even suggesting hiring a lawyer to go to work, but I talked her out of it. There is such a shortage of health care “professionals” up here, that even losing just one nurse, could mean the difference between one patient’s well-being. Or not. Or worse.

What the heck did Marty have to get stitches for? And are they in a bad place? Will he recover well enough? Yikes. A musician’s worst nightmare.

Reply
Idyllopus

June 22, 2007

Was in a bad place, between his fourth and fifth finger, left hand, but luckily no tendon cut and no permanent nerve damage. Has put his hand out of commission for a little while but it’s coming back.

Reply

Thanks Crawford Long-Emory!

Comments

2 responses to “Thanks Crawford Long-Emory!”

Leave a Reply to Idyllopus Cancel reply